Washington (CNN) –CNN is teaming up with the Tea Party Express for a first-of-its-kind presidential primary debate, both organizations announced Friday. The Tea Party debate, featuring 2012 Republican presidential candidates, is scheduled forLabor Day week 2011. It will take place in Tampa, Florida – the site of the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Since the spring of 2009, the Tea Party movement has been increasingly vocal in advocating for less government spending, lower taxes and shrinking the deficit. The Tea Party debate will place specific emphasis on those issues.

Tea Party Express Chairman Amy Kremer talked to CNN about what activists hope to hear from Republican presidential candidates….

But the “Tea Party Express” is a phony project from a PAC that keeps shifting names, but is an old for-profit Sacramento political GOP Shop, run by Sal Russo of Russo Marsh + Rogers, with Howard Kaloogian, recaller of Calif. Gov. Gray Davis, heading up the PAC:

Note that Johns stayed up through the Tea Party Express phase, left and was replaced by Amy Kremer, who they recruited from the local “tea party” as spokeserpent. She’s only “Chair” because it sounds better than “employee.”

MAF had its beginnings in California’s October 2003 gubernatorial recall election, which movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger won. One month after the election, the Daily News of Los Angeles interviewed Sacramento-based political consultant Sal Russo. “We took on the political establishment and won, and they feel empowered,” said Russo of the 120,000 recall supporters in his database. “They want to be involved. . . . We’ll change the name to something like ‘Move America Forward,'” and go national, he predicted. [6]

(CNN) – Two of the nation’s prominent tea party groups will merge for a Wisconsin bus tour in support of six Republican state senators facing recall elections.

Kicking off their four-day “Restoring Common Sense” tour Friday, Tea Party Nation and Tea Party Express will hold rallies in multiple cities and defend Republicans who supported Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial bill that curbed collective bargaining rights for state employees earlier this year.

“The tea party stands for fiscal responsibility, and Republican Senators in Wisconsin stood firm for those principles,” said Amy Kremer, chair of Tea Party Express. “Now they are under attack for doing the job they were elected to do. It is critical that we support and defend them from these undeserved attacks and in that effort we are proud to be joined by our friends at Tea Party Nation.”

The next round of recalls, scheduled for Aug. 9, is part of a summer long series of elections …

POLITICO (Washington) – The convention is being held at a fancy resort, features $550 ticket prices, a steak and lobster dinner and a guest speaker with a $100,000 speaking fee. It’s sponsored by a for-profit company with a mysterious wealthy benefactor, and its organizers, who have been accused of secrecy and corruption, have threatened lawsuits against dissenters and clamped down on news coverage….

Ah, Judson Phillips. This blog has previously asked and answered a question: Is the affable leader of Tea Party Nation a real Tea Party player, or is he just a quotable guy who can fill out reporters’ stories and TV bookers’ segments …

But it’s still stunts that only seem to bamboozle the media and “tea partiers” — who have always been difficult to separate from the con jobs who run the astroturf machines for their invisible funders.

It’s about bucks. And it’s about outside groups dumping cash and resources into Wisconsin, and dammit, that’s WRONG.

We need to return the “local” to “local government” and “home” to “home rule.”

Or else it’s just another sleazy publicity stunt.

We’re talking to YOU, CNN …

Do it while your vote actually still matters. But right now there is now astroturf on Lambeau Field, and it’s headed everybody’s way.

Courage.

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

About Hart Williams

Mr. Williams grew up in Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and New Mexico. He lived in Hollywood, California for many years. He has been published in The Washington Post, The Kansas City Star, The Santa Fe Sun, The Los Angeles Free Press, Oui Magazine, New West, and many, many more. A published novelist and a filmed screenwriter, Mr. Williams eschews the decadence of Hollywood for the simple, wholesome goodness of the plain, honest people of the land. He enjoys Luis Buñuel documentaries immensely.

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